Giant polyploid cells are formed if DNA replication is uncoupled from mitosis . This process has been termed the endocycle and is a characteristic of p53-null cells , which is further increased by exposure to radiation . It was thought that the process of endocycles was irreversible and the resulting giant polyploid cells represent a reproductive dead end.
Polyploid tumor cells are created by cytotoxic and targeted therapies , therefore the frequency of tumor cells with elevated ploidy is likely to significantly increase during therapy. Further, many front-line therapies are genotoxic mutagens. In this scenario, the therapy itself imparts a mutator phenotype onto the tumor, with polyploidy functioning as a genetic buffer to reduce the effects of deleterious mutations, increasing the probability of beneficial mutations surviving within the polyploidy sub-population to drive disease recurrence.
Zhang S, Mercado-Uribe I, Liu J. Tumor stroma and differentiated cancer cells can be originated directly from polyploid giant cancer cells induced by paclitaxel. Int J Cancer (2013) 134:508–1810.1002/ijc.28319 [PMC free article.